"All of the creator-owned projects that I have lined up, with writers that I am absolutely enthralled to work with, are all about a year down the road before they're prepared," Romita told ComicBook.com.

"Neil Gaiman, Mark Millar, Mark Waid and so on - so those guys won't be ready until a year hence.

"Which means I can do one of two things - just go freelance and play around or I can just sign a one-year contract with somebody to do a storyline that I want, which is a good possibility because I have a couple of plots lined up that I'm really fascinated by."